FairVote-The Center for Voting and Democracy has submitted
state-specific testimony to several HAVA committees. We are
making the following testimony available to any individuals and
organizations who wish to make use of it to promote compatibility of
new voting equipment with all election methods currently being used in
public elections in the United States.

HAVA Committee Testimony

Caleb Kleppner,

The Center for Voting and Democracy is a non-partisan, non-profit
organization that promotes fair elections where every vote counts and
all voters are represented. We wish to provide the following
testimony to all individuals and organizations seeking to ensure that
new voting equipment acquired under HAVA be compatible with all voting
methods currently used in public elections, including instant runoff
voting, choice voting and cumulative voting.

Executive Summary

At no cost to the voters, states now can ensure that all jurisdictions
acquiring new voting equipment have the option to use all election
methods, including ranked ballots and cumulative voting, currently used
in American public elections. Requiring compatibility of new
equipment with these different methods will not cost anything, nor will
it reduce the number of vendors bidding for contracts. On the
other hand, failing to require compatibility will effectively prevent
jurisdictions from adopting these methods until they acquire new voting
equipment, which may not occur for another 20 to 30 years.

Interest in a wider range of voting methods is growing rapidly across
the country, so it would be a mistake not to give all jurisdictions the
cost-free options to use the electoral system that the jurisdictions
judge to be best.

We wish to make the following points about voting equipment and
compatibility with two particular methods: ranked ballots and
cumulative voting:

1. Interest in instant runoff voting and cumulative voting is growing
nationwide because they address problems experienced with current
voting methods2. Incompatible voting equipment creates formidable obstacles to adopting these systems.3. Requiring compatibility with ranked ballots and cumulative voting
will not increase the cost of voting equipment contracts or reduce the
number of vendors bidding.4. Failing to require compatibility will preclude many jurisdictions
from even considering these voting methods until new equipment is
acquired, perhaps decades in the future.5. HAVA committees should recommend that all new voting equipment be
required to accommodate ranked ballot and cumulative voting.

We expand on each of these points below and provide extensive
documentation to support them. We also include four attachments:
information about new Federal Elections Commission voting systems
standards about ranked ballots and cumulative voting; evidence of
vendors' ability to accommodate ranked ballots and cumulative voting;
excerpts from testimony prepared for the New York State HAVA Committee;
and technical requirements of compatibility.

Introduction

The Help American Vote Act, combined with increases in local and state
funding, creates an important opportunity to improve the elections
process across the country.

In the wake of the Florida 2000 election, modernizing voting equipment
is the obvious first step to take. New voting equipment can
significantly improve the voting process by:

Making it easier for voters to cast a vote as they intend through well designed, voter-friendly interfaces;

Preventing invalid votes and allowing voters to correct errors;

Improving access for people with disabilities,
people with low rates of English literacy and people with limited
manual dexterity; and

Increasing public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.

Many people and organizations are addressing these issues
admirably. We wish instead to focus on a different but equally
important question: ensuring compatibility of new voting
equipment with a full range of viable voting methods.

1. Interest in different methods is growing because they address problems with the current systems

Interest in different voting methods is growing because they address problems experienced with current election methods.

Several jurisdictions have passed legislation that allows or implements
instant runoff voting, legislation has been introduced in many states,
and many municipalities have expressed serious interest in a wider
range of systems.

San Francisco adopted instant runoff voting to
increase voter turnout and save the cost of December runoff elections.
Santa Clara County (CA), Vancouver (WA), San Leandro (CA) and Oakland
(CA) have all adopted charter amendments that allow the use of instant
runoff voting when such technology is available.

Approximately100 jurisdictions have adopted
cumulative voting and limited voting (a similar systems) in the last
two decades to resolve Voting Rights Act lawsuits. These include
Peoria (IL), Amarillo (TX), Beafort County (NC) and Chilton County
(AL).

Government commissions in many jurisdictions have
recommended ranked ballot systems, including Santa Rosa County (CA),
Pasadena (CA), Kalamazoo (MI), Austin (TX) and the state of Vermont.

Numerous legislatures have requested studies of
the suitability of different voting systems, including Vermont, North
Carolina and the city council of Los Angeles.

Many colleges and universities have adopted
ranked-choice systems, and many have been using such systems for
years. Recent adoptions include: University of
Maryland-College Park, Stanford University, University of
Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Tufts, Wake Forest, Duke, University of
California-Davis, University of California-San Diego and Vassar College.

Our website, www.FairVote.org, lists over 30 bills
introduced in state and federal legislatures this year relating to
instant runoff voting, cumulative voting and voting equipment
compatibility. A bill to allow cumulative voting in local
elections in Illinois passed both houses and awaits the governor's
signature.

Ranked ballot elections have been used for over 60 years in the city of Cambridge (MA).

The 2000 presidential election, in which the winner won less than 50%
of the vote in Florida and third party candidates were charged with
"spoiling" the election, dramatically increased interest instant runoff
voting, with strong editorials in support of instant runoff voting from
newspapers such as USA Today, St. Petersburg Times, Minneapolis Star
Tribune, Trenton Times and Sacramento Bee.

As a reflection of the growing interest in different voting systems,
many good government and civil rights groups have endorsed the
principle of compatibility and are testifying to this effect before
HAVA committees across the country. Groups endorsing voting
equipment compatibility with ranked ballots and cumulative voting
include:

Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund

Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law

CALPIRG (California Public Interest Research Group)

Center for Constitutional Rights

The Century Foundation (one of the conveners of
the National Commission on Federal Election Reform (Ford-Carter
Commission)

The Constitution Project

Citizens for Legitimate Government

Committee for the Study of the American Electorate

Common Cause

Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action

Disabilities Network of New York City

Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium

Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund

Texans for Public Justice

Members of HAVA committees in California, Ohio, Washington, New York,
Vermont and South Carolina have expressed interest in requiring
compatibility with ranked ballots and cumulative voting.

2. Voting equipment and election administration often poses insurmountable obstacles to the adoption of new systems

Concerns about election administration played a dominant role in stopping many promising reform efforts.

In Santa Rosa (CA), the registrar of voters in 2002 testified that the
county's equipment could not handle cumulative voting, so if the city
wanted to proceed, it would have had to acquire new equipment and run
its own elections. This turned out to be financially prohibitive,
and the city council voted not to place cumulative voting on the ballot.

In Alameda County (CA), the registrar of voters stated in 2002 that the
county's new equipment could not handle a local instant runoff election
consolidated with a countywide election. This has prevented the
cities of Oakland, San Leandro and Berkeley from moving forward on
instant runoff voting.

In San Francisco, the voters adopted instant runoff voting by a large
margin in March 2002. It is a legal mandate for this November's
election, but the city and its voting equipment vendor still do not
have an instant runoff solution that runs on the city's voting
equipment. As a result of difficulties in adapting the voting
equipment, the city may wind up spending hundreds of thousands of
dollars to count ballots by hand.

In New Mexico and Maine, strong legislative interest in instant runoff
voting slowed primarily because election officials reported that their
equipment could not accommodate instant runoff voting. Efforts in
Washington and Oregon have also been hampered by incompatible voting
equipment as well as local efforts in places including Vancouver (WA),
Kalamazoo (MI) and Cincinnati (OH).

3. Requiring compatibility with different voting methods will not
increase the cost of voting equipment contracts or reduce the number of
vendors bidding.

This assertion is based on multiple sources of information.

* Federal regulations that require vendors to state
whether or not their equipment is compatible with ranked ballots and
cumulative voting: Attachment 1 is an excerpt from the Federal
Election Commission's Voting System Standards released in April
2002. These standards recognize that many electoral arrangements
are used in the United States, and they require vendors to state
whether or not their equipment can handle particular options and if so,
how it handles them.

The options include cumulative voting and ranked
ballots. These regulations obviously give vendors the incentive
to respond in the affirmative, to avoid losing business to a competitor
who offers more options. The federal certification process
includes testing all options that vendors provide, which means that
vendors need to develop these options and have them tested by
Independent Testing Authorities before they even apply for
certification in a particular state.

* Requests for Proposals (RFPs) in Santa Clara
County (CA) and Mendocino County (CA) that require ranked ballot
compatibility: Both Mendocino and Santa Clara Counties included
ranked ballot compatibility in their Requests for Proposals. All
of the major vendors are pursuing or did pursue the contracts. In
Santa Clara County, the three largest vendors all conducted pilot
projects and two of them demonstrated their ranked ballot
interface.

* Statement by Santa Clara County Registrar Jesse
Durazo after completing a competitive bidding process to acquire voting
equipment that can handle instant runoff voting: At the May 8th
2003 HAVA committee hearing in San Francisco, I asked Santa Clara
County Registrar Jesse Durazo whether including the ranked ballot
requirement increased the price of the voting equipment or reduced the
number of companies bidding on the project, he unhesitatingly
responded, â€œNo." When I asked him whether including a ranked
ballot requirement for all new equipment in California would increase
the cost or reduce the number of vendors, the answer was the same.

* Cambridge's (MA) experience implementing choice
voting on optical scan voting equipment: In Cambridge (MA), after
counting ballots by hand in the city's ranked ballot elections for city
council and school board, the city decided to start using voting
equipment. The vendor charged a one-time software fee of $40,000
to adapt an existing optical scan system to accommodate the ranked
ballot system on the equipment. This fee was independent of the
number of pieces of equipment used by the city and would not have been
charged to any other jurisdiction ordering that company's same
equipment. We believe that if ranked ballot compatibility is
included in the specifications for new equipment, rather than requiring
an adaptation of existing equipment, the feature will be included at no
additional cost to the jurisdiction.

* Vendors' bids on contracts in foreign countries
that use ranked ballots: In addition to bidding on RFPs in
Mendocino County and Santa Clara County, several of these vendors have
bid on contracts in Ireland, which uses ranked ballot voting for its
elections.

* Survey responses from vendors and conversations
with them about their ability to handle ranked ballots and cumulative
voting: Many of the vendors have responded to a survey by the
Center for Voting and Democracy and stated that their equipment can
handle ranked ballot voting and cumulative voting, and in personal
conversations with me, all of the major vendors have told me that if a
jurisdiction wants ranked ballot compatibility, the vendor can and will
provide it.

* Vendors' willingness to accommodate their
customers' demands: A bidding process with multiple vendors competing
gives all competitors incentive to provide maximum options at minimum
cost. In Santa Clara County (CA), the county decided to conduct a
pilot project with voter-verifiable paper receipts. The three
remaining vendors were willing to add a mechanism for paper receipts at
no additional cost. The evidence I have presented suggests that the
same phenomenon would occur with ranked ballot compatibility:
vendors will compete with each other to provide the option at no
additional cost.

4. Failing to require
compatibility will preclude many jurisdictions from considering
different voting methods until new equipment is acquired decades from
now.

If compatibility with ranked ballots and
cumulative voting is not required in new equipment, the winner of the
contract will not have any incentive to include this feature. If
in the future, the county or a city wishes to use instant runoff voting
or cumulative voting, the incumbent vendor, not facing any competitive
pressure, can and probably would raise the price dramatically to adapt
their equipment.

In San Francisco, before the voters
passed instant runoff voting, the vendor asserted that they could
handle instant runoff voting at a very modest cost. After the
voters changed the charter, the price increased dramatically, and it
has taken much longer than anyone expected to prepare the voting
equipment. It's possible that the vendor will be unable to
deliver a technological solution in time for the November 2003 election.

According to election officials in
another state, after acquiring a statewide touchscreen system, some
leaders became interested in using instant runoff voting in a statewide
election. The incumbent vendor assured the customer that they
could do it but said that it might cost $1 million and take 6 to 12
months. State officials privately told us that it would have been
much easier to include ranked ballot compatibility from the beginning
of the RFP process.

If you wait to add this standard, the
cost of converting to these systems goes up and generally becomes
prohibitively expensive. That would mean jurisdictions might have
to wait until the next generation of voting equipment is acquired,
which might take another 20 to 30 years.

5. HAVA Committees should
recommend that all new voting equipment be required to accommodate
ranked ballot and cumulative voting.

This simply requires that states only
acquire new voting equipment for which the vendor has responded in the
affirmative to the Voting System Standards, Vol. 1, Sec. 2.2.8.2. m.
and n.

We recommend that any Requests for
Proposals (RFPs) or authorizing legislation include a requirement that
the equipment be capable of conducting a ranked-ballot or cumulative
voting in the first election in which the equipment is used. The
following language would accomplish this:

"In the first
election in which the equipment is used, the system must be able to
accommodate ranked ballot and cumulative voting as specified in the
Federal Election Commission's Voting System Standards Vol. 1, Sec.
2.2.8.2. m. and n."

In some states, due to the lack of
currently certified equipment, it may not be possible to require
equipment ready to accommodate ranked ballots and cumulative voting in
its first election. In these cases, we recommend language that
makes it clear that the vendor must develop and certify such an upgrade
upon request of the jurisdiction. The following language is based
on the RFP used in Santa Clara County (CA) in 2002-2003:

"The system must
be able to accommodate ranked ballot and cumulative voting as specified
in the Federal Election Commission's Voting System Standards Vol. 1,
Sec. 2.2.8.2. m. and n. If a ranked-ballot or cumulative voting
system is authorized for use in the jurisdiction, the vendor must
provide all necessary software and develop and certify an upgrade
within a reasonable time to be agreed by the parties."

Conclusion

We are facing a great opportunity to
improve our elections. Please make the most of this opportunity
by requiring that all new voting equipment be compatible with ranked
ballots and cumulative voting.

If I can provide any more information about these issues, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Attachments 1. Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards 2.
Evidence of ability of vendors to accommodate ranked ballots and
cumulative voting 3. Excerpts from
recent testimony prepared for the New York State HAVA Committee 4. Technical
requirements of compatibility with ranked ballots and cumulative voting

Attachment 1 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards

Adopted April 30, 2002

http://www.fec.gov/pages/vssfinal/vss.html

Volume I

2.2.8.2 Voting Variations

There are significant variations among
the election laws of the 50 states with respect to permissible ballot
contents, voting options, and the associated ballot counting logic. The
TDP accompanying the system shall specifically identify which of the
following items can and cannot be supported by the system, as well as
how the system can implement the items supported: a. Closed primaries; b. Open primaries; c. Partisan offices; d. Non-partisan offices; e. Write-in voting; f. Primary presidential delegation nominations; g. Ballot rotation; h. Straight party voting; i. Cross-party endorsement; j. Split precincts; k. Vote for N of M; l. Recall issues, with options; m. Cumulative voting; n. Ranked order voting; and o. Provisional or challenged ballots.

Attachment 2

Evidence of ability of vendors to accommodate ranked ballots and cumulative voting A few state HAVA Commissions that are
considering requiring ranked ballot compatibility in new equipment o California o
Ohio o Washington o Vermont o New York o South Carolina Vendors that are currently running US ranked ballot elections

Finalists for the Santa Clara County
contract, which requires IRV-ready equipment when the county requests it o ES&S o Sequoia o Diebold Statement by a country registrar who acquired compatible equipment

The Santa Clara County Registrar, Jesse
Durazo, stated that including ranked ballot compatibility did not
increase the cost of their contract nor did it reduce the number of
vendors who submitted bids. Attachment 3 Excerpts from recent testimony prepared for the New York State HAVA Committee The Century Foundation

Abrams, Robert, Fried Arthur et
al. The Help America Vote Act: Impact and Potential for New
York. The Century Foundation, www.tcf.org.

Excerpt from ages 44-45:

"In addition to meeting these HAVA
requirements, the new voting equipment should have software that can
accommodate instant runoff voting and cumulative voting, in case the
Legislature votes to use this method in some or all elections. Instant
runoff voting is a ranked-choice voting system that allows voters to
rank candidates in order of choice, ensuring a winning candidate will
receive an absolute majority of votes rather than a simple plurality.
Legislation to conduct primaries and local elections through instant
run-off voting has been introduced in the New York State Legislature
(A4481, S4683 and A4482). In cumulative voting, voters cast as many
votes as there are seats and can put multiple votes for one or more
candidates." New York State Citizens' Coalition on HAVA Implementation

Testimony of The New York State Citizens' Coalition on HAVA Implementation

April 4, 2003

The New York State Citizens' Coalition
on HAVA Implementation is an ad hoc and diverse coalition of Good
Government, Voting Rights, Racial Justice, Disability Rights, and
Language Rights organizations and academics who are concerned about the
way in which New York implements the Help America Vote Act (HAVA.) We
are committed to protecting voting rights and improving the electoral
process in New York. The Coalition includes the Asian American Legal
Defense & Education Fund (AALDF), the Brennan Center for Justice,
Citizens Union, Common Cause/NY, DEMOS, Disabilities Network of New
York City, Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, New York Immigration
Coalition, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the New York
Public Interest Research Group, (NYPIRG), People for the American Way,
and several other organizations.

Excerpt from page 7:

"New machines should be versatile enough
to meet New York's diverse needs. New machines should be
â€˜system ready' to handle a wide-range of elections like Instant
Run-Off Voting and Cumulative Voting." Attachment 4

Technical requirements of compatibility with ranked ballots and cumulative voting

The simplest way to ensure compatibility
is to require that vendors reply in the affirmative to the relevant
voting system standards and be prepared to provide the solution upon
the demand of the election officials.

There are three technical components of
ranked ballot voting. First, voters rank candidates in order of
choice by indicating their 1st, 2nd choice, 3rdchoice and so on.
Second, the voting equipment either prevents voters from casting an
invalid vote (overvote, skipped ranking, listing the same candidate
more than once) or notifies voters of errors and allows the voter to
correct the errors. Third, the voting equipment stores ballot
images of each voter's rankings rather than sub-totals for each ballot
position. The output of the voting equipment is a data file that
contains an anonymous record of each voter's 1st choice, 2nd choice and
so on.

For cumulative voting, the ballot must
allow voters to cast a number of votes up to the number of seats and to
give 1 or more votes to 1 or more candidates. The voting
equipment must either prevent voters from casting an invalid vote
(overvote) or notify voters of errors and allows the voter to correct
the errors. The voting equipment has to keep track of the total
number of votes received by each candidate.

In Detroit, there have been three mayors in the past two years and the current one has come under scrutiny. Perhaps a system like instant runoff voting will help bring political stability to motor city.